Protein Crystallization Phase Diagram

Growing a usable protein crystal is a phase-diagram problem: the same protein solution stays clear, grows a handful of large crystals, or dumps out as useless amorphous mush depending only on where its (precipitant, concentration, temperature) point sits relative to the solubility and supersolubility curves. This simulator renders that phase diagram live and drives a 3D droplet of protein molecules with classical nucleation theory — cross the solubility curve and existing crystals start growing, cross the supersolubility curve and new nuclei appear spontaneously with a nucleation rate that turns on almost like a switch, and push concentration far enough and the molecules lock into disordered precipitate instead of an ordered lattice. Move the protein, precipitant and temperature sliders to hunt for the metastable growth window crystallographers actually target.